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I am obsessed with things that look like watermelons. I love the combination of green and pink, and I love when objects have that color combination. LOVE. So when I saw this while browsing around the Ravelry forums, I knew I had to have it (non-Rav link; to issue one of Petite Purls). Sized up to fit me, of course.
I bookmarked that just about when the pattern came out, though, which was several months ago. Seeing as I really should knit up the projects I have planned before I buy more yarn (college student budget and all that), it sort of fell by the wayside, despite how much I wanted to knit a tank top like that.
And then, last weekend, while happening past the local yarn store in Fredericksburg, Knitter’s Cottage, I noticed they were having a sale. So of course I went in. And found Serendipity Tweed on sale for six bucks a skein, so of course I bought three, two of green and one of red. And then, noticing I had a total of like 600 yards of yarn that I could knit on eights for a nice, drapy fabric, I realized I could knit a whole cardigan! I scoured Ravelry for inspiration, wanting (mostly) to knit something with raglan sleeves (because I haaaaaaate set-in sleeves). And then I found this cute little sweater.
So here’s what I’ve been working on:
The cotton/wool blend will be perfect for the last warm days of fall before it slides into winter (and, of course, it will be amazing for spring). And I finished my super secret knitting project, so for right now, it’s all Watermelon all the time. Probably it won’t take me a whole lot longer to do since I have plenty of knitting time in several of my discussion-based classes.
Next up on the needles is going to be a wool sweater for which I need to order another skein of yarn (Cascade Eco Wool, which I’m getting from WEBS along with Evelyn Clark’s Knitting Lace Triangles and some various other things, probably some Valley Northampton for a sweater and some Huntington sock yarn for some argyle socks). There’s still the inchies swap to be posted (one set was sent to my house instead of to me at school, so I’m waiting until it gets sent here to post). There’s also the super secret project, but that won’t get posted until December. But you will see it eventually, I promise! Stay tuned!
FO’s, that is. One I finished rather a while ago, and the other is something I whipped up during a movie because my current project was too complicated for movie knitting.
Pattern: None, just a chart of a design I made up.
Yarn: Random scraps of acrylic yarn
Needles: US 8/5 mm I think
This was a present for my friend Sarah, whose birthday was in early June. I spent a week frantically knitting it and sent it off to her in time for her birthday, but I forgot to snap a picture. Fortunately, she is my roommate at school this year, so I snapped one for Ravelry and for the blog.
Pattern: Calorimetry
Yarn: My handspun!
Needles: US 8/5mm straights
Mods: Cast on 88, did far fewer row 5 repeats
My first FO with my handspun!
This pattern is perfect for just a little bit of yarn, which is exactly what I had. I actually have a fair amount of yarn left over, though I’m not sure what to do with it. Perhaps it can be a stripe on a crazy handspun hat. The barber-poling of the colors looks great, but kind of obscures the ribbing. I don’t really care though; it still looks awesome. And I made it! From wool to yarn to dyed yarn to FO. : ) I will definitely be getting a lot of wear out of it come winter because it’ll add a bright splash of color to my winter wardrobe and so I can brag that I made both the Calorimetry and the yarn itself. WIN.
Coming soon to a blog near you: Inchies. Beatles things (part of which is SO FUCKIN’ COOL I can’t stand it), and more knitting. I started an awesome cardigan and scrapped a project I’d been working on for a few days (it just wasn’t working out). Stay tuned!
Pattern: My own, based on the idea for Soft Mit-Gloves. I wanted to make them but didn’t have/want to knit with sport weight yarn, so I improvised based on my tried and true mitten method.
Yarn: Lion Wool, almost certainly less than a skein.
Needles: US 6/4 mm nickle plated dpns.
I’d been thinking for a while about what to make my friend Jon for his birthday, and after much browsing on Ravelry, I found the Cigarette gloves mentioned above and knew they would be perfect. A while back, I made Jon some fingerless mitts for him to wear at the shooting range to keep his hands warm in the cold Pennsylvania winters. I thought a nice pair of wool mittens would do the trick nicely. This way, his index finger is free to pull the trigger, and the other fingers stay nice and warm, nestled in the mitten side. The left one is just a regular mitten cause you don’t need individual fingers on that hand.
Increasingly, I’m finding that worsted weight is a little too thick and awkward for mittens and gloves. I think these will work just fine, but in the future, I think I may have to reduce the weight of yarn I use for this sort of thing, or at least use yarn with more drape. A tighter gauge might also help, much as I dislike knitting at tight gauges.
Coming soon: inchies. More Beatles. Post Secret. Other knitting things. Stay tuned!
Pattern: Studio Shorts available on Ravelry here.
Yarn: Knit Picks Comfy in Marlin, about two skeins
Needles: US 7/4.5 mm Knit Picks Options and 16″ circ
Mods: Went up a needle size cause the sevens were closer and I knit fairly tightly. Left out the huge increase row because my thighs are not half the size of my hips and instead increased about five stitches around the back to accommodate my ass. Skipped the short rows in the front. Probably added extra short rows in the back.
These actually went by quite rapidly once I got the right amount of stitches around the hips, and I think I would definitely make these again. It’s so hard to find shorts that fit, and once I got a drawstring in these, the fit is perfect. And they’re sooooo comfortable. I love Knit Picks Comfy. It feels like kittens on my thighs. : ) I think I would decrease right before the ribbing. The ribbing on the waist isn’t really stretchy at all, and I think a smaller circumference would help that.
I’m extremely pleased with these though. The pattern is staying on my queue.
In other knitting new: super secret project is coming right along. Started another secret project (but probably only secret til next week or so since I’ll be giving them to the recipient then). Unfortunately, super secret projects are really all I’m knitting lately.
Fortunately, my partner for one of my swaps has already sent, so I’ll be showing you that by mid-next week ish. I’ve also been working on my inchies, and I’ll be ready to send out soon. Plus there’s a Post Secret swap (which I am thankfully not organizing). I love swapping, and I’m sure readers are fond of them since they provide tons of blog content. Stay tuned!
So, I don’t know if you can tell from previous pictures I’ve posted on this here blog of mine, but I weigh about 110 pounds, sopping wet. I’m a tiny little person. So I’m not sure what I was thinking when I blindly followed the directions in my shorts to k1, Kfb around the circumference after I joined the legs. This is what I got:
Yeah. Those are not going to fit. The legs fit perfectly, but there is literally a foot of extra space at the hips.
I though about giving up and moving on to other things. But when I tried them on, the yarn felt so soft and lovely on my legs that I decided to take the plunge and frog back to the join and reknit them, this time without the huge increase row. At this point, I’ve reknit back up to the waist ribbing, which took half the time as before because the rounds are half the size. I’ve had to add more short rows, but I think the size now is just about perfect.
Once again, I have multiple works in progress on the needles. I usually prefer to only have one at a time, but one will take a while and is less than thrilling to knit (the super secret project), one is almost done, and one I started (once again) so I’d have something to knit at Busch Gardens.
I can’t show you pictures of the super secret project, but here are the other two:
A pair of shorts because I felt like knitting shorts. I have very few shorts beause I can never find any that fit. : ( These are almost done.
I also started a light weight lace scarf in a yummy alpaca yarn in a lovely maroon color. I bought it at the Knitting Corner, another yarn store in Virginia Beach that I hadn’t been to before this summer.
Like I said, the shorts are almost done, so look for an FO post about that soon. I also have inchies and a swap coming up, so stay tuned!
Pattern: My own! A stockinette triangle with a wave lace pattern and a simple edging. I’d love to share it, but I fudged most of the numbers to make the lace fit, so it would be difficult to write directions.
Yarn: Red Heart Heart and Sole, about a ball and a half in “Spring Stripes”
Needles: US 7/4.5 mm Knit Picks Options circ
(It’s really not wonky, I just arranged it oddly on Elizabeth. It’s not crooked, I promise.)
I LOVE this shawl. It’s light but still warm, perfect for overzealous air conditioning. The colors and bright and lovely. I LOVE how the lace came out. It’s a simple pattern but because of the stripes in the yarn, it makes the colors pop and they don’t obscure the pattern tooooo much. The points didn’t block out as much as I’d hoped, but they’re pointy enough. All in all, the shawl came out almost exactly as I wanted it to.
Here are some more pictures (I really like macro mode):
Currently being crafty: Inchie swap. Soon to be another swap. A cool knitting project. And a super secret project that I won’t be able to talk about in detail until December. Don’t worry though, I’ll have plenty of other things to show you until then. Stay tuned!
Pattern: My own! This is my first sweater I designed myself! I based it on Lillie, but I didn’t want to do it in pieces and I wanted to make some mods anyway, so I just made it up as I went. It’s top-down, raglan style.
Yarn: Knit Picks Comfy in “Marlin”, fourish skeins
Needles: Knit Picks Options US 8/5 mm circ and some Clover dpn’s
I LOVE this sweater. It doesn’t much resemble my original sketches for the sweater, but I love how it came out. The fit is perfect, I love the angle of the fronts, and the cotton makes it perfect for layering over tanks in fall/spring. Perfect for back to school! I could probably wear it on cool summer nights too… Immediately after I finished it, I put it on over a short red dress I had on, and it looked fantastic, so I’ll definitely have to put it in rotation.
The buttons came from a swap (the Craft my Wish Swap, if you recall), and I used four of I think the five i was given. I think they fit quite well. And the yarn? The YARN. I’m in love with this yarn. It’s kitten-soft thanks to the microfiber acrylic and cool and pretty sturdy thanks to the cotton content. Did I mention it’s soft? Plus the color I used, Marlin, is such a lovely deep blue. And slightly shimmery. Amazing. AND, as a bonus, I only used four of the eight skeins I ordered, so I have enough to make something substantial. WIN. No idea what I’m going to make with the left overs, but I am quite happy to have it in the stash. I would definitely order this yarn again, and I probably will with my next Knit Picks order (whenever that will be).
Also: This marks number 12 in my dodecathon of sweater knitting! Since I finished in July, I may well go ahead and make 24 sweaters this year. Maybe. Right now, I’m in the mood for lace. Complicated lace, after the seemingly endless miles of stockinette in this sweater. And I did just buy some yummy alpaca lace in a lovely maroon color…
Pattern: Razor Cami by Katie Marcus.
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft, probably less than a skein
Needles: US 6/4 mm circ, Knit Picks Options
Modifications: Using light worsted instead of fingering, cast on 120 for 10 pattern repeats (which turned out to be perfect), divided for the armpits them did some garter in the front and bound off the back, and did two twisted chains for each of the straps. I was going to do icord straps, but by the end of this top, I was SO ready to get it off the needles.
So I like this a lot, even though it’s juuust a tad too short. I keep pulling at it. But worn over a tank that’s long enough, I think it’ll be okay. I got reeeeally bored about two inches from finishing this, but I’m glad I pushed myself through it because I’m quite fond of the finished product. It’s made of acrylic, so it’s rather warm, but I think it’ll look cute paired with a long-sleeved shirt for the winter, when I’ll appreciate the warmth.
And for those of you playing at home, this tank makes the cut for sweater number ELEVEN for the dodecathon. Here’s the monthly break down:
January: Corona/Talia
February: Burgandy (Cable Cardi from Knit Simple)
March: Spring Cardi (Hey Teach)/Lime
April: Lime/Superman
May: Climbing Vines
June: Lelah/Tank Top (Tank Girl)
July: Razor Cami
One more to go!
(Obviously it’s big and awkward on Mr. Frog. Go with it.)
Pattern: Green Zebra Baby Sweater at Dove Knits
Yarn: Nameless sport weight acrylic my grandmother gave me ages ago.
Needles: US 8/5 mm Knit Picks Options circ.
Mods: None, really. Accidentally knit the sleeves on US 6/4mm needles cause I forgot what needle size I was supposed to be using. *shrug*
A good pattern, I say, though it’s basically just a bottom-up raglan cardigan. I like the knit-on button bands, though keeping track of three balls of yarn in order to do it was a little fiddly. I didn’t bother with button holes cause I hate to keep track of them, so I just sewed on little loops for the buttons. It came out great though, and I’ll definitely keep this pattern on my list of knits if I should need another baby sweater any time soon.
It helps that this pattern has a bunch of sizes. I used the 24 month size cause the recipient, my cousin Colin, is just under a year and already in 18 month clothes. Hopefully this will fit for fall/winter! Regardless, it was pretty fun to knit.
Unfortunately, there are no modeled shots cause it’s July and I’m not going to stick a baby in a hot sweater in July for a photo shoot. Also, it’s too big cause he’s not quite in 24 months clothes yet. Maybe come winter I’ll get some from the parents.
In other knitting news: I finished the Razor Cami, pics to come soon. I also started a sweater and I’m halfway through a spinning/dyeing project. Stay tuned!
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 